


kill me if you dare, i'll hold my head up everywhere

by theheadgirl



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Book 6: Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, Gen, Imperius, Ministry of Magic, One Shot, Vignette
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-13
Updated: 2014-07-13
Packaged: 2018-02-08 17:41:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,105
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1950228
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theheadgirl/pseuds/theheadgirl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Not every decision we make is of our own volition. Percy Weasley knows this better than anyone. Set near the beginning of Half-Blood Prince.</p>
            </blockquote>





	kill me if you dare, i'll hold my head up everywhere

My wrists hurt. So does my head, actually. My shoulders, my legs ... now that I'm taking stock of things, everything hurts. What happened? I shift against the hard surface to rub my temples, to try and alleviate some of the pain there - but my hands won't move. My hands won't move.

My eyes fly open, then I wince back from the glaring white light burning into them. A moment later, my eyes adjust, and I blink away instinctive tears as the room comes into focus. Small. Bookshelves lining the walls. A coat rack by the door, a black cloak with a bright red lining hanging from one of the hooks. My office. What - ?

"Finally awake?" a voice sneers. It's familiar, but I can't quite put my finger on it.

Out of the darkness come black-cloaked figures, their faces hidden by silver, intricately detailed masks. Something in my stomach goes very cold. I haven't seen masks like that since the Cup.

"If you're trespassing on Ministry property," I say, hoping that Gryffindor bluster and bravado covers how terrified I actually am, "then you're going to have some trouble on your hands; the security charm - "

"The security charm won't go off," the familiar voice cuts me off from behind the center mask, "because we disarmed it." It's worse than Dumbledore thought. There’s three figures are flanking me, and one of them is placed effectively enough that he can disarm the wards around my office without setting off anything else.

"What do you want with me?" I demand. It can't be to kill me. I'm too highly placed in the Ministry, and I'm pure-blooded further back than about eighty percent of wizarding society. We've had word that Muggleborns and a few unfortunate half-bloods have met with, ahem, mysterious and utterly unsolvable deaths, but never a pure-blood. My disappearance would cause a disturbance, and not just because I suspect Minister Scrimgeour doesn't know how to make his own tea. No, this is something else entirely.

One of the men laughs. It's familiar, too, putting me immediately in mind of Quidditch, for some reason.

"Did you really think you could keep getting away with it, right under our noses?" the one in the center - I suppose he's the leader - demands.

Merlin's beard.

 _They know_.

I channel all of that blinding terror into affronted, wholly innocent outrage and confusion. "Get away with what, precisely?" Breathe. The guilty man immediately leaps to denials. The innocent one knows nothing to deny. "I don't know what sort of vigilante justice you think you're carrying out, but I demand you release me this moment, and perhaps you'll only rot in Azkaban until you're - "

"Shut him up!" the third one roars. " _Silencio_!"

My mouth is still going for a moment after my voice stops, so I close it and press my lips together, glaring at them, hopefully still conveying that I am the injured party here. Meanwhile, my brain is stuck on two words, in rhythm with the too-fast beating of my heart: they know. They know. They know. _They know_. What's your contingency plan for this, Professor? What are they going to do to me?

"I'm sure you thought you were particularly clever," the leader continues. "But when we killed Emmeline Vance, we found these on her." He pulls out several pieces of parchment, and I think my heart stops as I recognize my own handwriting. My face, I hope, stays a mask of injured, confused innocence.

"They were Transfigured into coins, but we still found them. And it just so happens that I'm pretty familiar with your handwriting."

Even though his face is hidden, I can tell the moment he knows I've put a name and face to his voice, because he laughs. Euan Yaxley, assistant head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, laughs. Euan Yaxley, who is familiar with my handwriting because we worked together on a project last year, and whom I would not call a friend, but I would call someone I regarded favorably. Euan Yaxley, the Death Eater.

"I thought there had to be a mistake, because you could never be a spy. You don't have the imagination for it. But Vance had so many little love notes from you. So now ... we're making sure things get seen to."

I shake my head, silently proclaiming my innocence, even in the face of insurmountable evidence. I try to meet Yaxley's eyes through the slits of his mask. You know me. You know I haven't the cleverness or imagination to have been a spy for the Order while in the heart of the Ministry. What, would I have staged that estrangement from my family? To keep them safe? To ensure my cover? Of course not. Not me.

And if I can get him to buy any of that, I might have a chance in hell of surviving.

"But you're lucky," he adds. "You aren't going to die." He laughs again as I start in obvious surprise. What does he mean? That's what I realized after agreeing to Dumbledore's offer. There's no way this ends and I walk away.

"No, the Dark Lord has decided that you're more useful to us alive than dead. He needs a man on the inside, too."

I press myself against the chair, pushing myself as far away as possible, shaking my head. No. No. I will never work for You-Know-Who. I will gladly welcome death before that happens.

Yaxley points his wand at me. " _Imperio_."

Closing my eyes and turning my head won't help. I can't do anything to stop it, with my hands bound and my voice silent. I don't even know where my wand is, and I'm rubbish at wandless magic - always have been. I still do it. It won't help, but it feels like it might.

In the seconds before it hits, I tell my mum I love her. I tell Dad I didn't mean it. I tell Ginny to do well at school and stay safe. I tell Ron to keep an eye on Ginny, and I tell the twins, Bill, and Charlie to take care of themselves.

Fog fills my head, and a voice - Yaxley's, I vaguely identify - whispers, _open your eyes_. It's coming from inside my head, and I should be outraged, should be terrified, but I can't quite get there. I do open my eyes, and the world has taken on a faint shimmer, giving it a feeling of unreality.

_Turn your head. Look at me._

My head turns. It’s not me turning it.

“Now, Mr. Weasley.” Yaxley lowers his wand, his voice friendly, almost warm. “Shall we begin?”

**Author's Note:**

> This was based off a comment at the Alohomora! forums that suggested that Percy was under the Imperius curse between Order of the Phoenix and Deathly Hallows. I said, mostly jokingly, that I needed that fanfic. But I actually did need it. So I wrote it.
> 
> Title comes from "Underdog" by Kasabian, though I took inspiration specifically from the [Kelly Rowland](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-VDvfmSz2i4) cover.
> 
> Thanks to Kay from findabeta on Tumblr for the quick beta! You are a gem.


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